Diagnosis of Angioimmunoblastic Lymphadenopathy

To the Editor.—  In 1977, my colleagues and I reported four cases of cutaneous manifestations of angioimmunoblastic lymphadenopathy¹; in two patients, the manifestations were tumoral, suggestive of a lymphoma, and in the other two, the cutaneous lesions resembled a drug eruption. In one of the tumoral cases, the clinical aspect had the major histologic features that are typical of angioimmunoblastic lymphadenopathy, ie, a telangiectatic network covering a deep, firm, palpable infiltration. The other interesting finding was that, whatever the clinical aspect of the eruption, the histologic pattern had the characteristic histologic features of angioimmunoblastic lymphadenopathy, although obviously the dermal infiltrates were more important in tumoral cases. Our findings fully support Drs Matloff and Neiman's statement² that an apparently trivial eruption of a toxicodermic type that carries an unusual histologic picture (polymorphic infiltrate, tuberculoid granuloma) can conceal an unexpected diagnosis of angioimmunoblastic lymphadenopathy. This fact should be known to